


The Truth Is But a Lie Undiscovered

by ilyena_sylph, Merfilly



Series: Get Out of the Fridge [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Relationships, Gen, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8202383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilyena_sylph/pseuds/ilyena_sylph, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: Those off Coruscant move a step closer to finding their next steps, while a pair of Jedi recover from the truth.





	

Rex slid into the cheap lodging they had acquired in a seedier part of town. It was one room, two beds, but privacy was a commodity none of them could afford right now.

"Everything points to the Fleet being at a standstill, with rumors they've massed around Coruscant. The Army is harder to find out what is going on, with conflicting hysteria over troops running amok on various worlds or that they have taken over Coruscant. Officially, the Senate has only issued a statement of there being a State of Emergency. Some of the contacts I've met with say the self-styled Emperor is dead, others don't believe it at all."

Ahsoka nodded. "Matches what I could find from the Green Jedi. They were hesitant to talk to me, but I finally convinced them that not helping me was ridiculous," she said. Her tone was somber, though. "From what they can tell through their own intel and the Seers they have, the Jedi are, by and large, dead. Some rumors cropping up of Jedi-led insurrections on the heavier clone-present worlds, but nothing that can be confirmed."

Padmé shuddered at both sets of news, before looking at her son and daughter. Somehow, she had to get back to the Senate, and learn the truth of it all.

"I need to get to Bel Iblis. If anyone has the truth, it's going to be him," she said softly.

Ahsoka nodded. "I thought that might be your next move. I'm working on a contact I had here, trying to stress the importance of anonymity and a meeting, but I don't know how convincing I was. I'm hoping her special skills helped her pick up on why I couldn't just outright state my business. Zeltrons are supposed to be able to work off less, right?" Her contact had certainly 'worked' on her, given that there had been a more peaceful feeling once she slipped out of that office.

Rex shrugged, but Padmé nodded absently.

"We're back to sitting and waiting since he lives on Corellia properly, if I remember correctly," Padmé mused. "Of course, if I'm very unlucky, he's actually on Coruscant, since he did maintain his position as an Observer."

"I'm afraid so. Until then, we scour the HoloNet, and keep talking to the people that will talk back to us," Rex suggested. "I know you prefer a direct approach; we all do, but with the twins, and you not fully back to fighting shape, we have to move slow. If the bantha filth isn't dead, you might be the last free leader of what will have to be the insurrection against him."

"Not last," Padmé said. "Because, Captain, you and your Commander there will be right beside me, leading it too."

* * *

Obi-Wan had managed, at some point, to pick himself and Anakin up, and got them onto the bed. He had then passed out as hard as his padawan… and he was going to suggest to his brother that if Yoda allowed for it, they would rebond as a training pair.

It was very clear that while Anakin had reached out to the Chancellor for aid, the mental manipulations and long-prepped compulsions had been against Anakin's base nature, a product of Sith brainwashing. Master Yoda might find differently, but that was his current opinion.

It was strong in his mind as he came awake, spooned around Anakin in a way that he had normally only done with lovers in the past. The tactile contact, however, seemed to be helping Anakin too much for him to deny the younger man, even if it made the situation even more complicated in Obi-Wan's head.

Still asleep, Anakin felt awareness in the body curled against his and grumbled, fingers wrapping around one wrist... that didn't feel quite right. That puzzled him, and he started working his way awake. It felt, he thought groggily, like trying to crawl out from under a dune.

Obi-Wan tried to shift back now that Anakin was showing awareness, but that grasp on his wrist didn't really relax. So he settled, bracing for whatever mood emerged, and hoped they really had beaten back the compulsions completely.

"I'm here with you," he said, keeping his voice quiet and gentle.

Master. Safe. ...cuddling? One of these three was baffling. "...hi?" he murmured, feeling profoundly like he'd been repeatedly kicked in the head as he opened his eyes. Padmé's apartment? Why were they --

\-- she was gone. She and the baby, oh, Force, _no_.

"Anakin, no," Obi-Wan said as the distress communicated itself more vibrantly in the bond. "We will find out what happened. You know how resourceful she is." If he took an optimistic approach, would that help Anakin focus? He hoped so. "Between the two of us, we can get into the Chancellor's quarters and search for evidence."

The mention of Padmé's resourcefulness brought a touch of a smile to his lips -- that was one of the reasons he loved her so much, that she would throw herself into any situation and get the better of it -- before that last made him growl quietly. It was true, they could, and would, but thinking about _him_... didn't hurt? 

Not the way it had been. Not... "What did he do to me? It -- I can't remember..." 

"Do you remember anything of the last couple of weeks?" Obi-Wan asked. "I had to strip a lot of influence and dark energies out of your mind, and it might have damaged some memory. Especially as it was very much like I was combating a second person in your mind."

He wanted Anakin to roll over, to let him see the man's eyes, but that could wait.

A couple of _weeks_? He frowned, casting back for his last clear memories. "Padmé's pregnant." That was crystal-clear, blazing moment of incredulous delight, standing behind one of the pillars in the Senate hall, so glad she was there. Months without seeing her, and then landing on Coruscant because... "Grievous, here... and Dooku? Oh, yes, some 'kidnapping'." 

He _hated_ being manipulated, hated that more of the _vod'e_ had died for that piece of _theatre_. 

"...fighting with the Council about... something? You asked me to -- " 

Obi-Wan had mouthed 'pregnant' at that pronouncement, but he had to keep his shock in check. "I went against my own scruples and did as they demanded, Anakin, asking you to keep an eye on the Chancellor. Suspicions were up against him already," he admitted. "Grievous, however, is firmly dead on Utapau.

"Pregnant, Anakin?" He made his voice light and gentle as he said it.

Anakin nodded, taking a slow, careful breath -- but Obi-Wan didn't sound chiding, so he did not snarl. "Don't know how, we're _always_ careful, she can't afford that scandal, not on Naboo... she told me, and that night the visions started." 

Watch the Chancellor, for the Council? No, he had not taken that well at all. He'd trusted him so much... and been so wrong. 

"Perhaps the Force wanted a grandchild," Obi-Wan said with a perfectly straight face, but his eyes twinkled as he said it. He then sobered. "I know, Anakin. It's one more in a long list of Very Bad Decisions we made as a Council." He shifted a bit on the bed, moving lay on his back instead of his side, but he didn't take the arm under Anakin's neck away.

Anakin grumbled at the teasing, then Obi-Wan moved and he lost the comfortable warmth at his back. He coughed, his lungs still complaining, and rolled to sprawl half-over his Master's body, along his side. "...bad, but apparently not _wrong_."

He didn't like admitting it. "It... that's some of the last of what's clear. Padme was... doing something, something she didn't want to tell me." He frowned, trying to call that up. "A petition, trying to rein _him_ in -- he had me there, when she presented it, and I... she was challenging him..."

"Oh dear." Obi-Wan touched Anakin's face lightly, trying to soothe him, even as he let himself stay perfectly relaxed under the sprawl. "I haven't wanted to try and reach Bail, but I can… if you wish… to see if he has any news of her?" He craned his neck enough to see Anakin's eyes, relieved to find two blue ones looking back at him.

He did hope the Senate would get things under control, and possibly decriminalize the Jedi. But that would require them truly seeing and accepting that the Chancellor had been the real enemy.

Anakin nodded. Anything. Anything that would help find her. If her own people didn't know... but Organa was another Senator, one she'd been working with. Maybe she would have told him something, or left a message, if she was... in control of her disappearance from Coruscant. "Why are you so relieved?" 

Obi-Wan snorted at him. "You are more yourself, and that… means so much to me, Anakin," he answered. Not the whole truth, but enough of it. "We should eat, I should check in, and then we need to find out the truth of Padmé's whereabouts."

Anakin was certain that wasn't all of the story, but it sounded like that was all he was getting. He couldn't really argue with the need to eat, either -- though finding things that weren't going to make his throat complain at him might be interesting. He really needed to find time to actually trance and deal with what being unconscious for most of a ten-day in atmospheric conditions no human was meant to survive had done, but there was probably too much to do for that. Unconscious -- oh, kriff!

He twisted enough to pull his comm to where he could tap it, and said "Artoo, buddy, I'm okay, sorry if I worried you..." 

The retort he got, after a few moments that were Artoo-coming-out-of-shutdown, was a sharp, [Threepio is gone, _that_ is what I am worried about. You I could check on with ship sensors.]

"Can he not trace Threepio, possibly ping him through whatever Droid'Net they use?" Obi-Wan asked, as he realized there might be a chance of hope. He was also amused, darkly, at the astromech being feisty at Anakin.

Anakin frowned, wondering, and eyed the comm. "Did you try getting hold of him, or were you waiting? Padmé left her communicator here, I can't reach her, but you two have a different system..." 

[Not on Coruscant,] Artoo said firmly. [Cannot trace. Must be disconnected.] Artoo's beeps managed to convey a firm sense of knowing Threepio still existed, that he was just out of touch.

"Either your droid is as optimistic as Ahsoka used to be--"

Ahsoka? Anakin frowned, trying to figure out why the mention of his padawan (not his padawan, the Council had made sure of that) was jarring something. He stretched out his senses in the Force, there had been something when he first arrived here... 

There, and there. Pain and determination and passionate will had seeped into the wall and the doorframe, familiar as his Master's presence, but not -- 

"She was here. She was here, with Padmé. But, we left her on Mandalore...?" 

"So we did," Obi-Wan said, before considering that. "I haven't had access to communications with the Army since running from… Since running. But I seem to recall hearing that Mandalore had been resolved, about the time I hit Utapau. She could have gotten back here ahead of me. 

"The question is why? Or how did she know to come? Unless her troops turned ahead of the rest of them?" That thought made him frown deeply, thinking of their too-young friend facing the clones that she thought of as family.

"Unless _what_?!" 

If Obi-Wan had any doubts of the distance between Anakin and the… persona that had crafted the horrors at the Temple, they would have vanished in that moment. "The Army has orders to kill all Jedi on sight," he said softly, aching all over again at the attack on himself, at the ripples in the Force as lights died out. "I barely escaped my men. Many, maybe most, did not.

"And it extended to the non-combatants, Anakin. The Temple is full of bodies of healers, archivists, and the wounded that were there to recover. I think, had the younglings not been evacuated already, they would even be dead. That has been the mystery for us, who warned the Temple to send them away?"

Anakin felt the blood drain from his face, his head shaking at the horror of that idea, at the obscenity of the thought that the vod'e would have attacked the Generals they served and protected so ferociously... but that didn't make any sense. "No one in the entire blockade took a shot at me, and I wasn't subtle," he said, confused, and only following one track at a time. 

Artoo, listening through the comm, said [New code for ship, given before the Bad Things...] 

"Meaning the Chancellor exempted you from the order that destroyed us all," Obi-Wan said, closing his eyes. He shuddered once, hard. Artoo had the right of it with 'Bad Things' and even if they managed to survive, unwinding all of what had been done would take decades, if not centuries.

"...from what you've said," Anakin managed after a few moments of turning that over in his mind in quiet revulsion, "that makes sense. He wouldn't have... wanted to lose what he'd just gained. Which... should mean I can go pretty much anywhere, right?"

"It should… but you might want to tempt a trooper by himself to test that theory. I don't recommend running from an entire squad or company of them," Obi-Wan said, a touch of bitter, black humor in his voice. "Let's eat, Anakin… and leave the rest for after."

Anakin nodded, turning over the question of his padawan's appearance here and the evacuation of the Temple younglings now that he'd managed to shove his horror off into a box in a corner of his mind to deal with later. "If I were betting, I'd say we solved the mystery of who got the younglings out, Master, with Ahsoka's presence here." 

"Except we still don't know how she knew," Obi-Wan said, moving to get up and go find food. "Which is nearly as vexing, or maybe more so."

_That_ was a point, Anakin had to admit, and he followed Obi-Wan towards the kitchen.

* * *

Ahsoka was the one to bring the dark-haired aide to the room, making Rex keep the tension to a minimum. He did move to where he could better cover the potential threat, while Padmé rose swiftly from the bed and crossed the room. 

"Sena!"

"Lady Amidala, it is good to see you have not been caught up in the Republic's chaos!" the newcomer said, embracing the woman with a formal hug.

"I have been out of touch with everything, and really need to know the situation there, Sena." Padmé guided the woman to sit with her at the small table in the room, while Ahsoka went and lounged on the bed with the sleeping babies. Sena's eyes had gone to them, an eyebrow rising, but she said nothing, thinking of her own secrets and potential scandals.

"Senator Iblis is aware of your need for intelligence, and has advised me to do what I can for you. He also entreats that I request your presence back on Coruscant as soon as possible," Sena told her. She settled at the table and pulled a data pad out. "The blockade is present, but Ambassadors and Senators are allowed back to the planet, as they are trying to establish an effective government and protection force in the face of losing both their Chancellor and the Jedi Order."

Padmé's face went hard at that last, even as she heard that plea for return and ached to already be back at work. "I take it he is there, then, and able to communicate out?"

Sena smiled slyly. "We have our own means of communication, yes. You know, ever since we declared Neutrality, that Corellia has been importuned and maneuvered in attempts to push us to declare for either side. We took measures to protect ourselves."

"Wisely."

"Senator," Rex said softly. "It would be best if we went back on a ship other than the troop ship." He was uncertain about going to the capital, as it meant Ahsoka's life would be in danger more than any other. He would do anything to make sure she survived.

He didn't care that he was likely a deserter in the eyes of the GAR. He was obeying his duty to Ahsoka.

Sena nodded at that. "I can see to outfitting all of you in new clothes and armaments as needed, plus arrange a ship. I will also accompany you; my place is with my Senator, but I was here to handle a matter for him when the attempted coup and assassination took place, meaning I couldn't get back to him."

"There was no coup," Rex growled, defending his Jedi instantly.

"Shh, Rexter," Ahsoka said, throwing him a wave of calming energy. "It's going to take time for everything to come out."

"So it will," Padmé said, her eyes sparking with intent to make certain it did.


End file.
